Lost wallet and passport!

This happened a while back, but I have really had much time to write until now, so here it is:

I was getting on the light-rail train to work. I paid for the ticket and put my wallet in my pocket. When I got off the train I put my hand to pat down into my pocket and it wasn't there! (On the subways and trains, if something looks like it might have some value, there are some people who will grab it the first chance they get and not ask around if it belongs to anyone... not everyone does this, but there are enough to make it unpleasant to drop things) My passport was in the wallet (apparently it's not that big a deal to be around the city without your passport.. you can just keep a photocopy with you or something, although I suppose you officially should have it on you) so i was feeling a little panicked.

I tried to go back on the train, but by the time I could communicate to the ticket lady why I had to go back onto the platform the train had already left for the next station. I couldn't pay for another ticket my cash, and bank card were also in the wallet, and so she refused to let me, until some bilingual passerby helped explain that i dropped my wallet. I spent a while looking for it at the two stations I got on and off the train. No luck! Then surprisingly, I got a phone call from someone at work saying, that someone had found my wallet and called them. I was very relieved. I had the card of an HR person at Microsoft in my wallet, and they must have used that.

Turns out that the person calling called himself 'Mr. Jin'. He said he lived in an apartment that was underground.. and was very busy most of the day. His cell phone seemed to be always off, but that makes sense if he was underground(!) the signal would be pretty weak. The person who took the phone call said that he sounded very suspicious because his accent was very strange, and he kept on demanding to know where i lived, and my personal phone number. Also the living underground thing didn't sit well with me... He called back a few times to work, and one of my friends, Alvin, offered his cell phone number to be given to the guy. It would be no good to give him my phone number since Mr. Jin doesn' speak english, and I couldn't understand Mandarin.

Locals suggested that I probably had a 50 percent chance of having a 'nice guy' who just wants to return it... and the Canadian consulate also suggested that in the majority of the cases when someone gets contacted, they just want to give back the passport. So I clung to hope that Mr. Jin was a good guy.

I came up with a plan, that we should invite Mr. Jin out to dinner to thank him, that way, keeping it in a public place, just in case he was crazy, or some other trouble... But by the time I left work ( 10pm ) they had not been able to get through to contact him.

Alvin got a call around midnight, and Mr. Jin said that we should meet that night, since he did not know where he would be tomorrow(!huh?) and my friend agreed, and then phoned me to tell me that he was on his way with three other students who also worked at Microsoft as interns. The plan was to meet in a public place, and that the other three were to stay far back with cell phone in hand ready to call for help (110 is Chinese equivalent of 911) at the first sign of trouble. Alvin and I would go and try to meet with Mr. Jin, and we would also run away at the first sign of trouble....

We approached the location and this tall skinny rough looking guy motioned us to go into a Korean bar. He had friends with him. In the bar, there was 5 guys, one at the door (i realized this later) and the other, including a really young one... 14?) sitting. They were scruffy looking,and perhaps worked outside, because they were very darkly tanned. Only the leader (the one with my wallet) spoke Chinese and even then, only with a very thick accent. Korean was their native language. They motioned us to sit down with them, and they ordered beers for everyone. Of course Alvin and I didn't drink any.. I checked to make sure all the contents of the wallet were there (they were, except the money)

With Alvin acting as interpreter, I found out they wanted 1500 RMB ( about $250 Canadian) to return the wallet. I hadn't been paid yet, and all the money I had was in the wallet. I told them to look at the bankbook (yes, i had that in my wallet too... i was going to go to the bank to change something that day and they needed bankbook and passport to verify) where it showed 5RMB in my account (less than a dollar Canadian). I had no money to give them! Second, it would only cost me about $50 / 300RMBto replace the passport. I said it would only cost 300 RMB, and I woudn't pay more. They gaffed at that... and negotiations started for maybe 30 - 45 minutes. From 1500 down to 800... We held firm and finally, they settled on 300 RMB plus their beer (turned out to be 100 RMB) .

Unfortuantely, none of the people that came with me had much money on them, so Alvin's three friends went back to the dormitory to get 300 RMB. This took a long time. another 45-60 minutes (but it seemed like forever). During which, Alvin and I were staring at 'Mr. Jin' and his gang at each other across the table. It was excrutiating. Like being punched in slow motion, and nothing you can do about it. (Unfortuantely, I was afraid to tell them to go to the police in English, since I wasn't sure if the gang of punks would understood ... (I found out afterwards that there is a police station about 3 blocks away!) Finally the friends came back and the exchange was made. The young extortionists who picked up my wallet were visibly nervous as it happened, and so they were just small time extortionists, and not professionals...


Total damage: 600 RMB (about 100 $ CAD). (150 in the wallet, 100 for beer, 300 for actual extortion money) and a couple sleepless nights thinking "what if". Well, at least I got my stuff back. yay!

By far, the worst thing about the experience is that everytime I saw someone who looked like the people who extorted me, I got a negative feeling about them and looked at them with suspicion; despite knowing that it is not a fair way of judging, and I know I shouldn't be thinking that way. It was quite bad in the first few weeks after it happened, but now, there's been enough time that the unwarranted suspicion and negative feelings are completely gone.